Review Blog

Oct 24 2016

Kaleidoscope, 2016. ISBN 9781922101501
(Age: 13+) Highly recommended. Short stories. Diversity. What an amazing
collection! The editors have gathered together what they consider
the best short stories for young adults in 2015 and they have
certainly succeeded in their goal. The stories are diverse with teen
characters and cover themes such as genetic engineering, end of the
world, horror, space travel and dystopias and are written by many
well-known and less well known (to me) authors.
This is an excellent collection to dip into and most readers will
find something that appeals to them. One that stood out for me was Bucket
list found in the locker of Maddie Price, Age 14, written two
weeks before the great uplifting of all mankind by Erica L.
Satifka. This was quite heart rending for the reader, finding out
what Maddie considered to be most important in the short time that
she had before being taken into the Sing. Readers will be left
wondering why people were taken into the Sing and will continue to
speculate about this long after finishing the story. Another story
that was quite frightening was The birds of Azalea Street by
Nova Ren Suma. This tale of abuse is told in a matter of fact voice
by a teenaged girl and the story will bring shudders to its readers.
Sean Williams in Noah No-one and the infinity machine
explores the idea of replication of people as his young protagonist,
Noah, tries out the machine that could turn a person into data,
finding on the journey a way to stop the bullying who had been
giving him a hard time at school. In For sale: Fantasy Coffin
(Ababuo need not apply) by Chesya Burke, a little girl is
chosen to protect the people of Ghana and would love to have a
coffin, but knows that she will never be buried in Ghana soil. These
four are just a small representation of the quality of the tales all
of which were thought provoking and left me thinking long after I
had read them.
The Summation: YA in 2015 at the beginning of the collection, gives
a really good outline of the works that were important in 2015, and
could prove to be most enlightening for readers who want to pursue
excellent reading in speculative fiction. At the end of the book,
there is a short biography of each of the authors, with lists of
their works which readers may wish to look for and read.
Pat Pledger